HENRIETTE

93

I wish you kept, for, being a stranger, God knows into
whose hands I shall fall.3
clf you trust me, you will fall into good hands.'
Well then, tell me where to find sempstresses who will
make up these materials, and where I can buy dresses, caps,
and mantles; everything, in short, that a lady requires.'
'If she has money you will have no difficulty. Is she
young?'
'She is four years younger than I am, and she is my wife.*
I took the best of everything she had, paid for it, gave her
my address, and begged her to send me the dressmaker and
milliner at once. On the way back to the hotel I bought
some silk and thread stockings, and ordered a shoemaker to
follow me.
What a delicious moment! I had told Henriette nothing
about my intended purchases, and she surveyed them with
an air of perfect satisfaction, but without excessive demon-
stration, though she proved her gratitude by the delicate
manner in which she praised the beauty of the stuff I had
bought. There was no increase of gaiety on her part, but
an air of tenderness which was better than all.
The valet whom I hired came in with the dressmakers*
and Henriette told him quietly to wait in the hall until he
was called; a quarter of an hour after, he followed the
shoemaker into the room, and stood about familiarly listen-
ing to our conversation; she asked him again what he
wanted.
'I want to know which of you two I am to obey?5 he
answered.
'Neither of us,' I said, laughing. 'There is your day's
wages, and begone!5
The dressmaker then proposed her own son as our valet.
His name was Caudagna.
My father was a native of Parma, and one of his sisters
married a Caudagna. 'It would be amusing,' I said to my-
self, 'if the dressmaker turns out to be my aunt, and my
valet to be my first cousin! I will keep my own counsel.*